


Witches' Wars

by Lancre_witch



Category: MediEvil (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Original Character-centric, Rating May Change, full list of warnings in summary will be added to as fic continues, summary will change when I can think of a better one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:13:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23632897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lancre_witch/pseuds/Lancre_witch
Summary: Born when the year was dying, and raised on hallowed ground, it was perhaps only natural that Meg's magic was nurtured by the dead. In a few years she would have pledged her life to the graveyard, and in return have power beyond that of princes and a life of centuries. Her path had once been clear. That was before Zarok returned.For centuries, witches had watched over the dead. By the time Sir Daniel returned to the land of the living, the cemetery coven was long gone.(Set during and after the prologue to the first game. This fic will eventually deal with implied sexual content, death, pregnancy, miscarriage, suicide, either mentioned, discussed, or depicted in text. Those warnings make it sound darker than it is, but do heed them if any are sensitive subjects for you)
Kudos: 4





	1. Brides of Death

**Prologue – 300 years ago**

Isobel and Mary stood side by side in simple white robes. This was the closest most witches ever got to a wedding. Sixteen years on Earth, and taught to walk with death for five, this was the day that would send them down a single path with no chance to turn around.

Isobel licked her lips and squeezed Mary’s hand as braziers flickered into life along the sides of the grassy path. Graves lined either side – a mute congregation for their coming union.

“Scared?” she whispered.

Mary, half hypnotised by the dancing fires, looked across at her. “I remember when we were apprenticed. You held my hand the same then.”

“Just nerves, Mary… Mary,” she repeated. “I’ll never call you that again.”

“Isobel...”

She might have said something more, but the rest of the coven were around them. Three women, one man. Two before them and two behind.

“This is your last chance to change your minds. No one will blame you if you need more time to decide,” Isobel’s mistress said.

The girls looked to one another. Mary shook her head, and Isobel just stared with a steely determination at the distant monument.

“Very well.”

Each girl followed her mistress at a slow walk, the rest of the coven following a few paces behind. It must have been an impressive sight in the old days when dozens would have followed, singing the old hymns and carrying coloured flames in their hands.

Mary joined in the singing quietly. There were more voices in the chant than there should be, even accounting for herself and Isobel. She kept her eyes focused on her mistress’s back, not looking at the small movements in the dark to either side.

The procession wound its way to the stone angel at the centre of the cemetery. White marble shone between two pillars of flame. The girls knelt.

Who first? Mary, who had the right of birth, a full three days before her friend? Isobel, whose flame of passion had propelled her through the craft barely half a pace ahead? The choice was not in mortal hands. Slow as the dance of continents the angel reached out both its hands.

How else? Their lives had barely twinned since birth. The girls stood. Each took the charred stick their mentor held out to them. Together they wrote their names on the blank plate at the foot of the statue. Together they made their vow.

“To Death I give my name, to Her I pledge my life, to the earth I commend my soul. May my pledge carry me through the centuries, may my soul pay for what I take, may She carry me kindly to my rest. By my blood I am yours.”

There was only one ceremonial knife. Isobel took it. Two palms pressed against each side of the blade without pain. Neither girl winced as crimson drops spattered onto the white stone. Their eyes were fixed on the names below.

The charcoal marks faded with every drop that fell, taking memory with them. The magic travelled back through sixteen years to the moments when two swaddled babes were given names. They were plucked from little grasping hands and laid in hallowed ground at the feet of an angel.

The blood faded into the stone, the wounds mended in a slice of light. Two graveyard witches raised their heads, an older, stronger magic flooding through their veins.

They had no need of names. They knew exactly who and what they were.


	2. Old Friends and New Beginnings

**Prologue – 13 years ago**

The mausoleum on the hill was the highest point for miles. A girl ran up the twisting path as fast as her chubby little legs could carry her, flyaway brown hair tangling in the breeze. Following behind, two old women climbed arm in arm. The shorter one carried a box of rowan wood, and stiffened at every rattle of its lock.

Her companion kept one eye on the lid and another on the girl chasing butterflies across the grass. To her, the graveyard was her playground, and fear a thing found only in stories. The witch only wished she could keep it so, but for now at least young Meg needn’t know of the sorcerer’s disgrace.

“You’re sure he’s gone north, then?” she asked.

“Aye. The coward wouldn’t dare come close to here, and if he went east he’d have found witches of the earth. Running with what he could carry, he wouldn’t want a fight.”

“Not even to get that back?” She nodded to the box in her wife’s arms.

“Not yet. And by the time he does, he’ll find it locked up tighter than the Serpent of Gallowmere. I’ve plans, my dear.”

“I’ve never known you without one.” She smiled tenderly, then looked up, checking the girl was still in sight. “Meggie was asking after you every day you were gone.”

She didn’t take her eyes off the box. “What did you tell her?”

“Only that her Mam had gone to see the king about the court magician. What are we going to tell her?”

“We’re not. She’s too young to have any part in this.”

“The traitor is hardly going to wait until she’s old enough.”

“Give him time to lick his wounds and if he’s any sense he’ll be long gone by the time she’s got to choose a path.”

“And what if she chooses to leave?”

“Then she’ll leave and not be troubled.”

“Hrm.” She didn’t sound convinced, but didn’t press further. “How bad was it?”

“A couple dozen dead. The hardest part was identifyin’ ‘em. They was a bit old if you catch my meaning.”

“What was?” a voice from elbow height asked.

The witch froze, her eyes still on the box. This was what she got for not paying attention. She never was much good at answering children’s questions.

“The court wizard she went away to say goodbye to,” the other answered quickly. “He was getting old and grumpy, and he wanted a new job.”

“Okay.”

A pause.

“You’re not going to do that, are you? You’re not going to get bored and leave?”

“No, chuck. Not us.”

“But you’ve been here for hundreds of years. Was he as old as you?” Meg pressed.

“Zarok? Coming up to his fourth century I think.” The witch glanced at her wife who shrugged carefully, keeping hold of the box.

They had reached the top of the hill. “You look out at all that, our Meggie. You won’t get a view like that anywhere else in Gallowmere. How would we get bored of that?”

She kept the girl’s attention, pointing out the dusty, winding road that led to the little cluster of thatched houses at Gallows Town. Meg never noticed the other witch’s brief departure into the mausoleum. She was too young to taste the magic in the air. She sat and listened, quite content, to stories of fairies and standing stones while behind her the glass window of the mausoleum twisted into the shape of a demon, its mouth open in a final futile scream.


	3. Witches' Work

Meg scrambled up the tree, not bothering to glance towards the cottage before reaching for the nearest fruit. She knew what time was best for scrumping.

“Oi! You get outta there!”

A young man ran down the hill towards her, the sun turning his strawberry blond hair into a halo of gold. Meg laughed and dropped from the branch, leaving the apple on its stem. She was through the graveyard gates and across the stream before he even reached the tree.

Meg spared a backward glance at the boy lagging far behind and slowed. She leaned against a stone cross and brushed a fallen lock of hair out of brown eyes as he watched him thread between the graves towards her. She grinned. To think that such a scrawny lad was apprenticed to be a gravedigger.

He smiled back at her. “Scrumpin’ apples again, Meggie? And for the church’s land, for shame.”

“’Long as I’m punished for the crime of Eve, I may as well commit it, aye?”

“Never reckoned a witch’s lass’d call it that.” The cheerful tone left his voice and his hand passed across her plump stomach. “You sufferin’, our Meggie?”

“Not because o’ you, Johnny. But you can help to solve it.” She leaned forward, letting her dress fall low across her breast. “You know what the first apple cost, aye? A good, church going lad like you?”

Johnny’s face shaded from pink to red as he whispered the answer, “Loss of innocence.”

*

The sun was low in the sky when Meg wandered home between the graves, having had her fill of forbidden fruit. The white marble monuments and simple wooden crosses were as familiar to her as a town girl’s neighbours, and there wasn’t one she didn’t know as well as she did the sextons in their little cottage across the stream. None down here anyway. Her eyes were drawn to the mausoleum on the hill, its windows glowing in the sunset. “Best to keep him close,” was the only thing her mothers ever said about it. If ordinary tombs were the houses of the dead, then that mausoleum was a prison guarded by a dozen wards.

“Hurry up, girl. We ain’t got all day.”

Meg turned to the figure outlined in the light from the cave mouth. She picked up her skirts and ran across the damp grass into the hollow hill.

A bowl was thrown at her as soon as she stepped inside, and the graveyard witch tutted. “Tardy again. Your Ma’d be worrying if she were here.”

“Sorry,” Meg said, and took a sip of the too-hot soup. “He’s still clinging on?” she asked.

“By some miracle. Old Thomson’s almost a stubborn as you. Now drink up and go. She’d have a duck fit if I let you walk into town after dark.”

Meg drank up.

“Goodnight Mam.” She kissed the old witch’s cheek and left with a bottle of small beer, a pack of cards, and a couple of things mortals shouldn’t know of.

The evening was fine and crisp and cool, and the last rays of the sun painted streaks of gold across the sky as Meg walked down the winding, rutted road to Gallows Town. It was a fair two miles to walk in the fading light, but Meg had walked with the dead all her life. She had no fear of walking alone in the land of the living.

The house was easy to find – a single candle sat on the windowsill of the room where the old man lay. She knocked on the door and was greeted by a tired looking, but not unattractive young woman. In another frame of mind, Meg would have appreciated the way the candlelight outlined the sharp planes of her face. As it was, she only noticed the dark shadows under her eyes and the worry lines on her forehead.

“Evening, Meg. It’s a fine enough night. Might be the last warm one we get this year.” She blinked quickly and cleared her throat.

Meg squeezed her hand. “You ought to get to bed, Beth. I can see myself in.”

“No, no, I ought to… Grandad wanted...” She shook her head. “Come along in.”

Meg followed. She didn’t mix much with the village girls what with one thing and another, but in the last couple of weeks Beth had become if not a friend then an ally. A slow death was never kind, but Thompson’s would have been far crueller without her.

She opened the door and stopped outside the room. Meg paused at the threshold.

“Do you want to see him before… you know,” she asked.

Beth swallowed and shook her head. “We said our goodbyes earlier. Your ma already sent him to sleep. Thank you for waiting with him.”

Meg nodded. “We’ll take care of him. Now sleep.”

She nodded and half fled. No one wanted to be around at a witch’s death watch. Meg closed the door behind her.

“Evening, Ma.”

“Meggie, there you are.” The witch left her book on the side table and hugged her tight. “I was beginning to worry. You didn’t have any trouble on the way, did you?”

Meg hugged her back. “I was touch late home, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

“Kept out by that boy again, no doubt. The two of you are nothing but trouble.” The witch smiled and patted her shoulder. “Just like your mother and I at that age.”

Meg caught her leg on the bed when she let go and stepped back. This room was so narrow, she couldn’t imagine how crowded it must have been when the family had gathered round to say goodbye. Now it was cold and quiet and empty except for the two of them and their patient.

“I promise you he won’t wake,” her mother said. “You won’t have to do anything but sit by him till morning, but are you sure you’ll be alright by yourself?”

“I’ll be fine. It’s nothing I ain’t done before. You get back home before Mam sets to fretting. Love you.”

“I love you too.” She picked up her book and wagged it at her. “Now see you don’t fall asleep, and remember we’re only a charm away if you need us.”

“I told you, I’ll be fine. See you the morrow.”

And so she was for the next few hours. The family had retired to their own beds, leaving her alone with an old man whose grip on life was faltering by the second. She played a few games of patience in the light of the single candle until the moon rose. Remembering the old warning, she closed the shutters against its light. His rattling breaths stopped soon after, and she sat beside the cooling corpse, softly singing the hymn to guide him on.

Midnight came and went. Meg half dozed in the lonely darkness, startled back into full wakefulness by the distant barking of a dog. The small hours crawled by.

Her thoughts drifted to the future, the little night-time doubts creeping out of the shadows. She loved Johnny, she did, and her mothers were proof enough that a witch could raise a child, but the future felt long and large and threatening. If she was any other country lass, they’d marry and be done with it, a nice, simple, short life played out over fifty or sixty years. That wasn’t the life of a witch. That wasn’t the life she’d been trained for.

Born when the year was dying, and raised on hallowed ground, it was perhaps only natural that her magic was nurtured by the dead. In a few years she would pledge her life and her name, and in return the graveyard would give her power beyond princes’ and a life of centuries. And in less than sixty years she would look much the same, and Johnny would be lying on a bed like this, and all she would be able to do was help him on his way.

A hand pressed against her belly, always plump and getting plumper. _Time to decide soon, Meggie. Time to choose._ Marriage and magic, it was a rare blessing to find happiness in both.


End file.
